Why does stage picking come first?

[atangerine]

To clarify, why is it:

1) Decide stage
2) Decide character

Instead of the other way around?

 

[Zhea]

To reward players who have learned more than one character. The way are striking rules work, the player with the more diverse portfolio always has the advantage on match-up. Keep in mind during initial stage striking, you can(and should) declare blind pick and have to strike without knowing your opponents character. Also to out line the entire process it looks like this:

Striking:
1) RPS for port priority
2) Higher port strikes 1 stage
3) Lower port strikes 2 stages
4) Higher port strikes 1 stage
5) Both players blind pick character

Banning:
1) Winner bans Stage
2) Loser selects Stage
3) Winner may change Character
4) Loser may change Character

Very few rule sets DO NOT work this way. Few players use blind pick or the port system, but that is STRICTLY under the gentlemen's clause. At it's core, this is how it should go down.

 

[Massive]

This rule originated from the older style of tourney matches. You would declare stage bans before selecting characters and then choose a random stage to begin the set.

The character selection would occur after stage bans to prevent people from banning a stage based on the character you picked (banning FoD if they pick sheik, banning DL64 if they picked puff, etc).

Honestly I do not think the order of selection is as necessary as it once was with the advent of stage striking.

 

[Bones0]

To reward players who have learned more than one character. The way are striking rules work, the player with the more diverse portfolio always has the advantage on match-up. Keep in mind during initial stage striking, you can(and should) declare blind pick and have to strike without knowing your opponents character. Also to out line the entire process it looks like this:

Striking:
1) RPS for port priority
2) Higher port strikes 1 stage
3) Lower port strikes 2 stages
4) Higher port strikes 1 stage
5) Both players blind pick character

Banning:
1) Winner bans Stage
2) Loser selects Stage
3) Winner may change Character
4) Loser may change Character

Very few rule sets DO NOT work this way. Few players use blind pick or the port system, but that is STRICTLY under the gentlemen's clause. At it's core, this is how it should go down.

That's all wrong, that's not what double blind is... Double blind character selection still occurs before striking. It's just done for situations like Armada vs. Hbox where Hbox selects Puff, Armada selects YL, Hbox switches to (for example) Falco, Armada switches to Peach, Hbox switches back to Puff. They will keep cycling so you have to pull both players aside and have them pick their characters separately. Once they find out what the matchup will be for game 1, they strike.

Stage selection occurs before character selection because there used to be a ton of super jank stages. If someone played Ganon, for example, their opponent would be able to pick Poke Floats or some other stage where Ganon gets trashed. So instead, they made it so that player would have to pick Poke Floats and give the Ganon player a chance to change to a character that can manage better. Now that we only have 6 stages this is largely irrelevant. You could have players pick characters first, but the above effect is still somewhat prevalent on certain stages in certain matchups (spacies on FD being the most common), and you also only make counterpicks stronger by doing that.

The loser of the last match always has to be able to pick their character second because otherwise it'd be dumb to get surprised by a worse matchup on your own counterpick. So that means you have the winner selecting their character before the loser. From there, you can either put stage selection first or last. Putting the stage selection last means the winner would have to select their character without any knowledge of what the next match would hold. At least when you put stage selection first, they can pick a character that suits the stage and/or get an idea of what character their opponent is probably going to pick. Bo5s no longer have bans so the player is left to the mercy of their opponent. I actually have character selection before stage selection in my ruleset because players are still able to ban a stage (they just can't ban the same stage as they did the last time).

 

[atangerine]

So the main reason why I started this thread was because I thought of a possible way to include more stages (Mute City, Corneria, and Congo Jungle namely). I'm not complaining about the current ruleset, but I think variety is always an improvement.

The idea was:

1) Decide character
2) If it's a ditto, then other stages (again, probably just Mute City, Corneria, and Congo Jungle) become legal
3) Pick stage

Obviously, it's really situational. Also, I'm not going to claim that I know everything about current rules and procedures. However, I was hoping that this could be a possibility with some more improvement.

 

[Bones0]

So the main reason why I started this thread was because I thought of a possible way to include more stages (Mute City, Corneria, and Congo Jungle namely). I'm not complaining about the current ruleset, but I think variety is always an improvement.

The idea was:

1) Decide character
2) If it's a ditto, then other stages (again, probably just Mute City, Corneria, and Congo Jungle) become legal
3) Pick stage

Obviously, it's really situational. Also, I'm not going to claim that I know everything about current rules and procedures. However, I was hoping that this could be a possibility with some more improvement.

I have toyed with the idea of making certain stages legal for certain matchups (primarily Kongo Jungle because it only becomes unplayable for slow characters), but I think it is ultimately too messy. It will hardly come into play at all if it's only for dittos, and if you try to make a list of characters that are capable of dealing with the stage vs. a certain character, you'll always be arguing with people that think the stage is too bad for their character for it to be a legal counterpick.

 

[atangerine]

I have toyed with the idea of making certain stages legal for certain matchups (primarily Kongo Jungle because it only becomes unplayable for slow characters), but I think it is ultimately too messy. It will hardly come into play at all if it's only for dittos, and if you try to make a list of characters that are capable of dealing with the stage vs. a certain character, you'll always be arguing with people that think the stage is too bad for their character for it to be a legal counterpick.

I'm not sure what you mean by this. If it only applies to dittos, then I thought that stages become preferences only, without any advantage for either player.

Also, when I say the "other stages" I mean all of the stages become available. Not just for certain matchups (just to clarify).

Even if it may not come up often, I believe that it adds a new layer of strategy to the game.

Of course, you most definately know more than me, so I might just be rambling. Hopefully not.

 

[Bones0]

I'm not sure what you mean by this. If it only applies to dittos, then I thought that stages become preferences only, without any advantage for either player.

Also, when I say the "other stages" I mean all of the stages become available. Not just for certain matchups (just to clarify).

Even if it may not come up often, I believe that it adds a new layer of strategy to the game.

Of course, you most definately know more than me, so I might just be rambling. Hopefully not.

Just because it's a ditto doesn't necessarily mean the stage is good for competition. Stage hazards like the acid on Brinstar are extremely disruptive to the rest of the game so even if you're playing a ditto, that doesn't mean it is a good competitive stage. A stage can be fair, but if it has randomness that significantly impacts the match, it's going to increase variance in results.

 

[atangerine]

Then do you think that all the stages (besides the 6 current ones) have too much randomness to be considered fair? In my opinion, I think that Corneria and Congo Jungle don't involve too much randomness. Mute City is a fan favorite I believe, but the cars and other stuff make it too "random" for competitive play.

 

[Laudandus]

Corneria and Congo Jungle are banned because camping and forcing someone behind to approach from above is broken, not because of randomness.

Mute City is banned because it is extremely broken for Peach and Puff, not just because of randomness.

 

[atangerine]

Corneria and Congo Jungle are banned because camping and forcing someone behind to approach from above is broken, not because of randomness.

Mute City is banned because it is extremely broken for Peach and Puff, not just because of randomness.

Yes I know that, but in a ditto, the character advantages wouldn't really matter.

 

[Laudandus]

My bad, I didn't read the whole thread.

Regardless, I think with the way stage selection works now trends have moved away from wanting stage diversity and toward wanting basic, simple stages. I doubt you could get Brinstar/Mute City/Rainbow Cruise back in since Rainbow Cruise/Brinstar were basically just banned because people don't like them and not because of matchups, and the problems with Corneria/Congo Jungle don't go away in dittos.

 

[Bones0]

Then do you think that all the stages (besides the 6 current ones) have too much randomness to be considered fair? In my opinion, I think that Corneria and Congo Jungle don't involve too much randomness. Mute City is a fan favorite I believe, but the cars and other stuff make it too "random" for competitive play.

The only problem I have with Kongo Jungle is you can time people out really easily if their character is slow and/or has limited jumping capabilities.

Corneria has Arwings shooting at people and the weird drift effect caused by the ship changing speeds. Gameplay around the fin can also be pretty bizarre with certain characters able to camp either side very easily which means holding the lead matters way more than on any other stage.

Mute City has cars and while the section of the track you are playing on isn't random, sometimes it is there to save you by getting bounced back upwards and other times it is not. It's not really feasible to expect players to time the pacing of stocks to increase their chances of recovering so it ends up feeling random.

Why Brinstar is constantly brought up as one of the less radical counterpicks is beyond me. The entire stage except for the top plat gets engulfed with acid at least once a game, and it does tons of damage. When the acid isn't getting people comboed into KO moves, it's saving recoveries that normally would have been easily edgeguarded. To top it off, if the center plat gets broken even a little you start hitting weird little walls trying to move.

These are all subjective standards for how much randomness I think is permissible so I completely understand if anyone disagrees. Unfortunately for those people, the majority of people have demonstrated a disinterest in practicing and competing on those stages, and tbh I think a lot of people who ask for old stages to be added back into the stage list would change their mind if they played them in friendlies more often. It's easy to play 1-2 games on these stages and think "oh, the hazards kind of interfered but they weren't that bad", but then one time an Arwing shooting you while you wait to edgeguard the opponent will cost you the game and you'll never want to play on it again.

 

[phish-it]

Striking:
1) RPS for port priority
2) Higher port strikes 1 stage
3) Lower port strikes 2 stages

This rule always irked me even if it is subtle. Higher port already has a (trivial) advantage for situations when 2 players grab eachother, grab the ledge or pick up an item on the same frame ( the latter is not really relevant to tournament matches though). Even if this difference isn't a major one, why does higher port get another reward in being able to stage strike first?

If anything rules should enable lower port to stage strike first, or the obvious rock paper scissors.

If someone played Ganon, for example, their opponent would be able to pick Poke Floats or some other stage where Ganon gets trashed.

I remember when I used to counterpick people to pokefloats as Ganon. I guess that was a time before everyone had a pocket fox.

 

[Luma]

it was also a time when fox players didnt camp phish =P